Lost Data
You may have heard of renowned author, entrepreneur, and marketing expert Seth Godin? He has published many books on marketing, entrepreneurship, and the way ideas spread. He is best known for his unique approach to marketing, which emphasises the importance of creating remarkable products and services that people will talk about and share with others, which he’s detailed in his best-selling books, including "Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable," "Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us," and "The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)."
In addition to his writing, Godin is also a popular speaker and blogger, and his insights on marketing and entrepreneurship are widely followed by business leaders, marketers, and entrepreneurs around the world. He has also founded several successful companies which he then sold.
These days, Seth hits a lot of people’s inboxes daily with his unique daily blog, one that he has been writing for over a decade. The blog covers a variety of topics related to marketing, entrepreneurship, creativity, leadership, and personal development, among others.
Godin publishes a new blog post every day, and each post is typically short and to the point, often consisting of a single idea or insight. His writing style is straightforward and engaging, and he uses anecdotes, examples, and metaphors to illustrate his points.
One of the unique features of Godin's blog is that he doesn't allow comments on his posts. Instead, he encourages readers to engage with his ideas by sharing them on social media or by starting their own conversations around the topics he writes about.
His daily blog on 24 March is an interesting one in that it talks about how generic ‘software companies’ don’t care about data. As an avid fan of Seth’s content, although not always in agreement, the way he can share an idea so succinctly and provoke new thinking is powerful.
In this post however, it stirred a stronger emotion – have a read of the post below and we’ll share why below this:
The rules are pretty consistent:
The easier it is to create and save a video or other file, the more likely it is to be lost or corrupted
The more important the data is, the more likely it is you’ll notice when it gets lost
The harder it is to replace, the more frustrating it will be
We’re all creators now. Podcasting, videoing, photographing, spreadsheeting… and we’re building a foundation of valuable data as we go.
The software companies that produce the tools we use push their engineers in many ways, but not to create resilient storage systems that are sure to honor the effort and care you put into creating your data. They want you to believe that they will effortlessly and seamlessly maintain all the data you trust to them, but they actually spend most of their time focused on other things that they deem more commercially important.
That’s because convenient, viral or flashy are generally more profitable than resilient and reliable.
When a conferencing app lost a video I worked really hard to record, I realized that trusting them was my first mistake. If there’s a one in a thousand chance that a file is going to be corrupted or simply lost, storing it in two places or recording it simultaneously in two systems lowers your chances of failure to one in a million. I will never trust them again, and you shouldn’t either.
Forewarned should be sufficient. Assume that the software company doesn’t care nearly as much about your work, your memories or your reputation as you do.
What was your response to the post? Nodding in agreement or needing some time to ponder? Recalling a similar experience where something was ‘lost’?
For us here at Holdmine, the initial reaction was #notallsoftwarecompanies …
As his point is likely to be valid for many pieces of software, for creative content platforms, and social connection ones, but the key point about “not to create resilient storage systems that are sure to honour the effort and care you put into creating your data” really lit a fire as for us, the opposite is true for Holdmine.
Because the Holdmine platform has to be resilient so you can safely and securely store data, and retrieve it when you need it, well-architected and robust storage is essential for that to happen.
It was also the first step in designing Holdmine – working with a database expert to determine the protocols and approach for great data management and a system that was secure, safe and scalable.
Actually, now we think about it, Seth really reiterates that we’re in the rarefied air with how Holdmine works and our core values.
We’re in the 1% that do care about your data - protecting it, and maintaining it securely for you. As other ventures step up their game, you can rest assured, we will always be at the front of that curve too and doing what it takes to keep your data safe, secure and stored where and when you need it. We know it’s not sexy but simple, secure systems that are easy for you to use, really are what floats our boat.
